Trump defends AG Bondi’s handling of Epstein files

President Donald Trump on Saturday urged his political base to stop criticizing U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files investigation. Bondi did a fantastic job investigating the death and operations of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Trump said. A recent Justice Department memo about the case concluded that, counter to popular theories, Epstein didn’t keep a list of clients, and his 2019 death was a suicide. Influential figures among conservatives, including Laura Loomer and Elon Musk, recently criticized Bondi and asked for further release of information about the Epstein case.

Epstein died before his sex trafficking trial concluded, but his associate Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted in 2021 for conspiring to abuse minors and sexually trafficking them. Hundreds of pages of court documents from the case were later released.

In his social media statement, Trump said the FBI should focus on investigating other matters, including what he called the stolen election of 2020, instead of repeatedly looking over the same documents. The president also claimed that leftist politicians were involved with writing, creating, or publicizing the Epstein files while not releasing them.

U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., over the weekend said he would introduce an amendment to demand all Epstein files be released to the public.

What other information did the government include in its recent memo? The Justice Department and FBI on July 6 also released links to video footage of the area outside Epstein’s cell on the night of his death. Investigators said the footage showed that no one entered the area. According to the memo, investigators didn’t plan to release any further information on the case.

Bondi previously intimated that she had a client list on her desk, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Bondi’s comments actually referred to the entirety of the paper evidence she was investigating.

Dig deeper:Read my report on the Epstein memo’s release for more details.